Like you, we’ve watched Pinterest.com explode in popularity over the last eight months. Has it occurred to you how  fascinating it is that, at its inception, the direction of Pinterest’s development was open to interpretation?  The concept was simple: pin up pictures of things you like.  Maybe the crowd would turn it into YouTube with photos, or maybe a visual Tumblr. Who knew where the members would take it?

Well, women (and it is women on Pinterest) have spoken and Pinterest’s vision is clear: it’s a crowd-sourced catalog.

Check out the ecommerce data, assembled in an infographic from FastCompany.com, seen here: http://bit.ly/NkzCwt.

Pinterest’s ability to power ecommerce is astonishing.  80% of the categories are commerce-related. Food is the 4^th most shopped category on the site, so we’ve been using for our client to bump up our web presence for SEO. Even without ecommerce to drive response, our the click-thru rate to recipes (our KPI) outstrips any other digital medium…including the increasingly kludgy Facebook.

Look at the average order value as compared to Twitter and Facebook. Twitter: $68.78/Facebook $80.22/Pinterest $179.36!!!  And as you see from the infographic, marketers are on-board — 80% of the the categories are connected to ecommerce.

If you aren’t up to speed on Pinterest yet, here are a few pointers for optimizing your ecommerce:

• It’s about the pictures. Pinterest isn’t awkward-snapshot-friendly like Facebook.  Good quality counts here, people, so invest in well-lit, professionally styled photography.
• Show the price. Pics with prices get more clicks.
• Keep it interesting.  Show how your product can be used in a clever, beautiful, or fun way.  Cute gets liked.

As always, we’re here to help if you have questions or projects.